Park Board Decides to Hold Line on Fees

Published on September 6 2012 2:32 pm
Last Updated on July 14 2013 12:07 pm
Written by Greg Sapp

Effingham Park Board commissioners Wednesday decided to hold the line on fees for district baseball and softball programs.

Park District Director Jeff Althoff Thursday said there was discussion about increasing the in-district fee to participate in baseball and softball by five dollars, to $30. Once the costs incurred and revenue earned was reviewed all the way from T-Ball through Junior Babe Ruth and girls softball, though, the district finished about $4,600 in the red this year. Althoff said park commissioners agreed that the district could absorb a loss of that amount and said they didn't want to "put more of a burden on families."

The Board also looked at capital improvement projects for the next year. Althoff said they discussed replacing the light poles on either the front or the back softball diamond at Hendelmeyer Park since they are wooden poles at those diamonds. There is also sentiment for replacing the large wooden playground structure on the east side of Community Park, for doing more asphalt work either at the parking area by the wooden playground structure or the roadway that runs through the bottoms at the back of Community Park, and construction of a pavilion and concessions stand between the Ripken diamond and the southwest diamond on the west side of Community Park. The current concession stand behind home plate at the Ripken diamond would be converted into storage space.